Dark Creations: Hell on Earth (Part 5) (8 page)

“Or what?” Ace faced off with Gabriel. 

“Or you’re going to get hurt.”

Ace tossed his head back and began howling with laughter.

“And how do you think you’re going to do that, son?” Ace asked and patted Gabriel’s cheek condescendingly.

Melissa’s stomach dropped.  She knew Gabriel would not stand for such disrespect.  He immediately seized Ace’s arm and twisted it behind his back.  He forced him to the ground below and slammed his face to the dirt with ease, and held it there.

“You disrespect her again, I’ll rip your fucking arm off, understand?” Gabriel stated calmly.

“Fuck you,” Ace grumbled, defeated and flattened.

“Fuck me?
” Gabriel said and twisted his arm, causing him to cry out.

“All right!  Enough already!” Jack scolded them. 
“Let’s get back to business.   We’re all here for the same reason.  We have to work together.”

“You say one more thing to her, and next time you don’t get up.  Got it?” Gabriel yelled at Ace as he slowly relinquished his iron-clad grip on him.

Ace rose to his feet, slowly, and said, “Whatever you say, prom king,” defiantly.

Melissa gripped Gabriel’s arm and felt
his muscles tense as he took a step toward Ace.

Jack looked between Gabriel and Ace then said, “Okay, if you guys are finished here, we can go and eat something and tomorrow we’ll show you what we found.”

Ace stalked off sullenly and disappeared into the farmhouse.  Jack watched him go and shook his head slowly.  “Ace is an asshole, but a good soldier,” Jack said apologetically.  “C’mon, follow me,” he ushered them toward the farmhouse. 

As they climbed a small flight of rickety steps,
Melissa heard Alexandra talking behind them. 

“Damn Gabriel, you’re really butching it up lately.  I like it
,” she praised as she pressed past them into the house. 

“Excuse you,” Melissa said.  “Jeez!”

Though she’d griped about Alexandra barreling past them, she was not entirely disappointed by it.  She actually stepped aside and allowed Ryan and Daniella to pass, as well as Yoshi.  Gabriel, already over the threshold, looked around then over his shoulder nervously.

“Hey, there you are,” he said and smiled.  “What happened?”

Melissa gestured for him to come back outside.  His expression became concerned at once and she regretted making him feel that way.  But she needed a moment to compose herself.  Her entire body trembled from Ace’s comments and the run-in that had taken place thereafter.  It was enough to know that Terzini, or some twisted variation of Terzini, might exist on the same planet as them.  Jack’s belief that he was raising an army of creations, his belief that he’d already taken over a town, was more than she could bear.  Adding that to an already insurmountable situation with the ragtag group of hostile misfits they were currently joining forces with, and she feared a nervous breakdown was a certainty in the near future.

Gabriel stepped out and descended the stairs two at a time. He waited until everyone that loafed in the doorway had cleared before he spoke.

“Are you okay?” he asked her and took both her hands in his.

“Are
you
?”

“I’m fine, why?”

“Let’s see, I don’t know, you just got into it with Ace the tobacco-chewing redneck who seems a few beers shy of a six-pack.  Why wouldn’t you be fine?”

Gabriel smiled.  “Come on, after all we’ve been through you think that hick can bother us?”

“I guess not.”

“Besides, we’re here to find out what the hell is going on.”

“I don’t want this, any of this,” she interrupted him.  His expression quickly shifted.  He looked as though he’d been slapped.

“
I’m sorry,” he said and dropped his gaze.

“No
, no.  You don’t have to apologize.”

“
Yes I do,” he said and looked crushed.  “If it weren’t for me, you’d never be in this situation, any of the awful situations I’ve put you in.  You’d be better off.

“No I wouldn’t!
I don’t regret a single moment we’ve shared, even the awful ones.  Sure, I could’ve done without them, but I want you, Gabriel.  You’re the
only
person in this world I want.  I’m not going to lie, though,” she said and swept her arm to her side, toward the farmhouse.  “This whole thing with Jack terrifies me.  I thought this was over, that we were going to have a normal life together, a wedding, an apartment, a future.  I thought we’d ended the nightmare.  And now, now it’s back.  The nightmare is back, and worse than before.”

“We don’t know that.  Let’s listen to what they have to say.  After seeing these guys
, I am starting to really doubt there’s anything happening here.”

Melissa hoped he
meant what he was saying.  He did not speak with the conviction she’d hoped for and doubted he believed a word of what he’d said.  But she appreciated his intentions.  He wanted to protect her, to give her hope.  In the back of her mind, she knew Terzini was back.  And while the likes of both Ed O’Malley and Ace did little to support Jack’s case, something had rattled them.  Now, they needed to hear what that something was. 

“Ugh,
spending time here feels like cruel and unusual punishment,” Melissa said trying to lighten Gabriel’s mood.

“You sound like Alex when you say that,” he teased.

“You take that back, Gabriel James,” she feigned insult. 

“And if I don’t?” he looked at her mischievously.

“Then I’ll have to come up with some way to punish you,” she tried to flirt, but felt utterly ridiculous.  Her cheeks blazed.

“Well then,” Gabriel fumbled and looked as uncomfortable as she felt.  “
I’ll have to be sure to, uh, watch my, uh,” he continued to stammer before giving up, frustrated.  “Dammit!  I suck at this.”

Melissa giggled and wrapped both arms around his waist.  “I love you,” she said against his hard chest.

“Wow, I should sound like a moron more often,” he said then kissed the top of her head.  “If it gets me this kind of response, I’ll be sure to blabber incoherently at least a dozen times a day.”

Melissa’s heart swelled, filled with so much love for Gabriel, it felt as if it would burst.  She squeezed him tighter.  “Wh
at did I ever do to deserve you?” she muttered.

“Obviously something very bad,” Gabriel joked and tightened his arms around her. 

“You guys are nauseating!” Alexandra squawked from the top of the staircase. 

Melissa looked up and narrowed her eyes at her friend.  Alexandra winked and smiled.  “C’mon, Colonel CrazyAss is about to get started with some kind of presentation.  Better come in,” she said before disappearing.

Reluctantly, Melissa let go of Gabriel.  As she stepped back, he cupped her chin in both hands and tipped it up to face him.  He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers gently.  For a moment, she forgot about why she’d come to Minnesota, forgot where she was altogether.  But all too soon, his lips left hers and reality returned.

“Guess we’d better get in there,” he said and led her up the stairs.

Melissa had no idea what was in store for her beyond the threshold of Ed O’Malley’s front door, but hoped for the best, even though
the best
seemed more and more unlikely with every step she took.

Chapter 7

Amber could hear nothing but the sound of blood roaring behind her ears as she directed the young man before her.
  She had killed her entire team, had chosen, instead, to save a random human being and his sisters.  She had no idea what had possessed her to act so recklessly, so impulsively.  But now she was faced with the consequences of her actions.

Her mind spun like wheels into mud, speeding and burrowing without progress.  She needed to move him and his sisters, needed to get them far away from
Taft.  But how was the real question.  How would she get them out of their house, out of the town, out of the damned state?

He turned to face her, leveled
a gaze at her with hazel eyes that seized her.  She found herself feeling suddenly uncomfortable.  Breathing became difficult.  She had no idea what was happening to her, had never experienced anything like it.  But something about his eyes, perhaps their uniqueness, their depth, caught her off guard.  She fumbled for words.

“
Do you have a name?” she asked and cringed at how idiotic her question had sounded, especially given the circumstances.  Of course, he had a name.  Whether he would give it to her after witnessing his parents’ death and her murdering her teammates remained to be seen.  “What’s your name?” she tried again in a gentle tone.

“Kyle, m-m
y name’s Kyle,” he said nervously and looked away from her to his sisters.

“Kyle,
my name is Amber Herald.  I know you’ve been through a lot,” she fumbled awkwardly. 

She had no experience with one who grieved, one who felt hurt and terrified.  She did not know the right words to say, just that she wanted to make him feel better
.

Kyle nodded at her attempt at expressing empathy.  His gesture encouraged her.  “I have never lost someone I love.  I’ve never loved anyone,” she said honestly.  “But I can see that you’re hurting and
I want to help you.”

He had been dividing his attention between listening to her and rubbing his sisters’ backs soothingly.  Unexpectedly, he turned from the girls
, turned his unwavering interest to her, pinning her with his piercing eyes.  “You have no idea what’s inside me right now,” he said and his voice cracked with emotion. 

It took her a moment to gather herself before she answered, and his eyes did not release her while she did.  “You’re right.  I don’t,” she admitted.  “I’m not trying to pretend I do. 
I’ve spent my entire existence with them,” she spat and gestured to one of her fallen teammates.  “Robots with skin, that’s what they are.”

A look of disgust clouded Kyle’s handsome face and Amber withered as a small part of her died.

“I don’t expect you to feel bad for me, and I don’t expect you to understand.  Just know that I want to help you.  I don’t know the words to say to make you feel better, but,” she started.

“There are no right words to say, Amber,” he said softly.  “People,
your people
, just burst into my house and tore my family apart.”

A sinking feeling settled in her chest.  She was the enemy.  Nothing she could say would change that fact.  But she could do something, something that would help him and his sisters survive.

“I’m going to help you Kyle, the only way I know how.  But I need you to trust me.  Do you want to live?”

“Yes,” he said firmly.

“Can you trust me for the next hour?”

His wary expression said more than any words he could have spoken.

“Right now, I’m all you have.  I know these people,” she said and nodded to Kit splayed at her side.  “I know how these operations go down and it is nothing you want to stick around and find out about.”

Kyle nodded slowly, the direness of his already horrible circumstances setting in.  He glanced at his sisters again then said, “All right, I will trust you for the next hour.  What choice do I have?”

“None,” she answered somberly.  “Okay, we don’t have much time.  I am going to ask you to do things you may not want to do and I may be curt with you, but please know that everything we do will be done for a reason, a very important reason.  And everything has to be done quickly.”

Amber checked her watch and muttered, “Dammit!  They’ll be coming soon.”

“What?” Kyle asked concernedly.  “Who?  Who will be coming soon?”

“
We have to act now.  There’s no time for questions,” she said, panic moving her to be snippier than she wanted to be.  “I need you to go and get me something heavy, like a brick.”

Kyle looked at her and hesitated as though he were questioning her.

“Kyle,
now
!” she ordered him and his feet began moving.

He walked past her, wary of leaving her with his sisters and careful to avert his eyes from the corpses of her fallen comrades, to the doorway then dashed out of sight.  While he was gone, she quickly began undressing her dead teammates,
stripping them of their darkly colored uniforms.  Her hands moved with the speed and dexterity of a person who was calm and in control of her environment.  They belied the chaotic swell of energy that surged, the panic-stricken adrenaline coursing through her veins.  Impossibly steady fingers methodically unbuttoned the plastic buttons that fastened the thick, stiff fabric of their military style attire, unzipped zippers and untied boot laces.  By the time Kyle had returned, her teammates had been undressed and lay in their underwear only.

Kyle paused in the door
way and knitted his brows together at what she’d done.  In his hand, he held a bizarre looking figurine with a white beard and triangular cap.

“Was that thing outside?” she asked frantically.

“No, no my father loved this.  It was in his office,” he said and glanced at the statue.  A tear slipped down his cheek.  He did not bother brushing it from his face, but left it there.  His suffering made the sinking feeling in her chest clench suddenly, adding a layer of pain to it.  “He collected them.  They’re gnomes,” he continued.

“Gnomes?”
she said and felt the clenching intensify.

She’d inadvertently invited him to elaborate on his father’s beloved collectible, a mistake she deeply regretted.  As soon as the word had fallen from her lips, Kyle’s expression transformed from
one of sadness to torment.  She braced herself in expectancy of him elaborating, of verbalizing his anguish.  But he did not say anything further.  Instead, he surprised her with a question. 

“Why did you do this? 
We never did anything to anyone,” he said and set the gnome beside her, its odd eyes and creepy grin facing her, watching her.  He moved to his sisters who cried softly into one another’s curly hair and tried to comfort them. 

Amber contemplated offering an account of their mission, but
did not trust her voice to hold.  Her throat had constricted so tightly, she doubted any words would escape.  Also, there was no time for lengthy explanation.  And any explanation she offered would be nothing more than an excuse, an empty, pathetic excuse for senseless killing.  Anything she tried to convince him of would be just words she did not believe herself.  Her mission was one of murder, plain and simple.  She doubted he would understand it.  After all, even she did not understand it, and she had been bred for it. 

“Look,
what happened here, the horror of it all, was wrong, worse than wrong, and I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for your parents’,” she stopped.  She could not bring herself to say the word
death
.  The word
death
to her implied some sort of natural cause, a peaceful passing.  Neither of his parents had experienced something natural or remotely peaceful.  Their brutal murders, coupled with the trauma Kyle and his sisters had endured, were inexcusable.  Nothing she could say could erase it.  Still, he wanted an answer.  He stared at her quizzically, skeptically, with hazel eyes wise beyond his years.  Guilt flooded every part of her, began drowning her.  It was her fault.  His pain, his loss was her fault.  All he wanted was an explanation and she couldn’t even give him that.  Self-loathing began to mingle with the guilt engulfing her. “I will tell you everything you want to know, okay?  Just not right now.  Right now, we don’t have a second to waste,” she said softly in a voice far stronger than she felt. Kyle nodded in agreement, defeated.  “Now I need you to do something else, and I’m sorry to have to ask, but I need you to go get two outfits of your father’s and one of your mother’s, shoes, socks, everything.”

Kyle
paused a moment and looked into her eyes, past her eyes even, and into the farthest reaches of her core.  His look penetrated her resolve.  For an instant, she flirted with crying, something she’d never done in front of another living being.  The pain etched in his features was so palpable it reached to her with arms that ached for a way out, an escape from the iron-clad grip of grief.  She contemplated embracing him, but his moment of complete vulnerability was fleeting.  Within seconds, he’d set his jaw firmly and furrowed his brow before racing past her into the hallway and disappearing into one of the bedrooms.  She hesitated briefly, wondering what it would feel like to hug another, to hug Kyle.  Then, following her own orders, she shook her head and immediately moved to the staircase and started undressing the final male member of her team.  When she’d finished, she stepped back into the room with the huddled twins and saw that Kyle was returning with a mound of clothes and shoes in his arms.  She handed him the uniform she’d stripped from the member on the staircase and began instructing him.

“
You need to take your clothes off and put these on,” she said and felt warmth spread over her cheeks.

“What?  Why?” he balked.

“I can’t, I can’t explain it now,” she replied.  “
Please
, just do it.  I don’t want you to die.”

Her cryptic words were enough to convince him as he
pulled his shirt over his head, dropped his nylon athletic pants to his ankles then kicked them off.  Her mouth fell agape as she watched, shocked by the strength of his chest and arms, and felt her cheeks burn.  She knew she should turn and give him his privacy, but stood, riveted, anchored to the hardwood flooring.  He stepped into the uniform trousers and slipped his arms into the button-front shirt.  He turned to face her and held his arms out to his sides as if to ask her if he looked okay.  She nodded, surprised that he filled the uniform as well as he did and half-wishing he’d taken longer to put it on.  She needed to consciously force that image from her mind.  No time existed for daydreaming, no matter how new and exhilarating it was. 

She turned from him
, blazing from the neck up, and rummaged through the clothes he’d brought from his parents’ closet until she found a pair of women’s dress pants and a blouse.  She rushed to Kit’s lifeless body and began dressing her in Kyle’s mother’s clothing. 

She supposed she ought to
feel remorse or trauma over killing fellow members.  But she did not.  In fact, she felt nothing at all, at least not for the dead that weren’t human.  She felt panicked and terrified of what was to come, what she and Kyle and his sisters would be up against.  But she did not regret taking Kit’s life.  Kit had not had a life.  Neither did Amber for that matter.  They had not been friends and they had not shared meaningful experiences.  She and Kit had existed side by side for more than six months but had never spoken a word to one another until earlier in the day when they had been selected for their mission.  Then, their interaction had not been even remotely amicable.  Amber held the designation of commanding officer.  Kit had been her subordinate.  That had been the extent of their relationship, a series of “Yes ma’am” and “No ma’am.”  That had been it.

Now
, as she hovered over Kit and finished the final buttons of her silky blouse, she was glad she’d never known her.  It would have made what she was about to do far more difficult.

She looked up and saw that Kyle watched her
intently.  “I need you to help me,” she pleaded and knew her cheeks glowed. “I need you to dress him in one of the other outfits,” she said and nodded to the dead creation in the room.  “I’ll take care of the one on the steps.”

A look of horror flashed briefly in Kyle’s multifaceted irises.

“I know, I know,” she said gently.  “I’m asking you to do something so morbid the thought of saying
yes
is unthinkable.  But believe me when I say your life depends on it.  Please, help me.”

Reluctantly, Kyle took an outfit and began dressing the dead male member in the room.  She breathed a silent sigh of relief then slipped out of the room after grabbing the remaining outfit and dressed the member on the steps
.  When she returned, she was shocked and satisfied to see Kyle had paced her and had outfitted his man as quickly as she had. 

“What are you going to do with the rest of the uniforms?” Kyle asked her.

“We’re going to have to wrap them around your sisters.  They won’t fit properly, but they will block the girls’ scent so they won’t smell them.”

“Smell them? 
They
?  What the hell are you talking about?”

“
Please don’t ask questions.  Just wrap you sisters in them!”

“What?  No!  Enough already with the secretive crap!  I’ve played along.  I’ve gotten my parents
’ clothes for you, even dressed a dead murderer in them for you, and still, you tell me nothing!  I can’t do it anymore!”

She saw him begin to
break down, but needed him, more than anything else, to stay with her, to cling to whatever sanity he had left.

“I can’t now.  I need you to just stay with me, okay, please,”
she heard herself say calmly despite the fact that her panic had multiplied exponentially. 

Too much time had passed.  The Hunters were waiting to eat, expecting their meal with each second that ticked by, pacing hungrily.  They would storm the house soon if they weren’t fed.  They knew
that five bodies had been promised to them, three adults and two children.  Though the Hunters were not capable of higher thinking as human beings were, they did possess a number of human qualities.  Among them was acute awareness of their anticipated meals.  They understood gender differences, age differences and the number of bodies to expect.  Perhaps they perceived variations in taste or texture that marked sex and age categories.  Amber simply did not know, did not want to know.  The thought of either was revolting.  The fact that they could count was unsettling, as well.  She needed to work around their limited but dangerous intelligence and divert their attention.  And there was only one way to do that.

“Please Kyle,” she begged.  “Your sisters need you.  I need you.”